Down...But Not Out

"If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday, laying flowers on it's grave by the hour, you cannot be planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today."
-Joyce Chapman.

Not all that long ago I was invariably dreaming a fantastic dream. This special dream filled me with hope, and not the kind of hope you might have when you throw a penny in a well and wish for something. No, this kind of hope was much more potent and made up of two elements - desire and enduring expectation of this desire coming to fruition.
Detailing the specifics of this dream seems unnecessarily garish therefore I beseech you to use your lovely little imaginations and fill in the blanks.
Well this dream did not ever come to anything, not anything other than a whole lot of hurt. I know they say if you never take risks, you'll never gain anything. But what do those same people say to someone who has risked everything and lost it? While there is wisdom to gain in failure, wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said that experience is the best teacher and only fools will learn from none other?
Sometimes taking big risks will pay off in the end. And other times, well it quite simply won't. At least not in the way that we might have hoped. Sometimes dreaming a dream that seems too big, seems that way because it is.
While I do not understand why certain things have happened and why I have needed to feel the hurt that I have felt, I do know that it was for a reason. And I do understand that when adversity strikes we always have two options: get bitter or get better. So I choose the latter, I choose to realize it is a blessing to be reminded that winning does not always mean you go home with the jackpot, sometimes it means you break even and live to try your luck another day.